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As per my last post (which I didn’t realize didn’t get published until right now but whatever~) I spent my Chuseok holiday with my relatives in Korea! To be specific, I visited relatives living in the Gyeonggi province (or Gyeonggi-do as they say in Korea). I had a good 4-5 day weekend and all I did was eat, sleep, and repeat (with some family gambling mixed in here and there – don’t worry guys I lost money hehe)

Anyways this was my first time to really ‘celebrate’ Chuseok in Korea. Now what does that entail? Well basically Chuseok and Lunar New Years are known as 명절 (myung jul) in Korea, don’t ask me what the translation is cuz I don’t know. These two times of the year are the only times when the entire (and in my case extended) family get together to eat and talk and enjoy each others’ company. There are also specific foods prepared for these special occasions. First is 송편 (song pyun) a delectable rice cake dessert-type item that is made with sesame seeds. (Yum!) Also my favorite type of meat BEEF is prepared as well. Marinated beef ribs or 갈비찜 (galbi jjim), spicy beef stew 육개장 (yook geh jang) and of course a ‘national representative food of Korea’ (if you will) 불고기 (BULGOGI!) I had all of the above except for the beef ribs because to prepare it takes a lot of work or 손 (sohn – aka hands). We also make and eat a variety of 전 (juhn aka Korean pancakes) some vegetable 전 and my very favorite kind called 동그랑땡 (dong guh lang ddeng) which is like dumplings except they’re round and have BEEF!! (I really like beef :P)

Oh and we can’t have holidays without alcohol and so I enjoyed some of that as well including 막걸리 (mak guhl lee aka the Korean version of sake except its better because I say so) and 맥주 (mek joo aka beer). Oh I forgot another thing everyone does when we get together and that’s watch tv.

I also would like to mention that I helped make 전 and collected some ingredients, namely pine leaves to make 송편 (pine leaves are steamed with the rice cakes to give that oh so pleasant aroma and feel ^^)

I feel super recharged and well rested and also super duper fat after doing nothing but eating, sleeping, and repeating for 3 days straight. Haha it seems like September will fly by in no time what with a students’ field trip coming up as well as midterms. I think I will just glide into October!

Here are some pics of the various food dishes oh that reminds me about 잡채 (jahp cheh) a really good noodle dish with various veggies and BEEF!

It’s Friday night over here in the SK. There’s nothing on the tv worth watching. I had a not so great time last night and so I’m just using today to rest and chillax (that’s chill + relax!)

I’m recently sort of/kind of/possibly addicted to a PC game as well. It’s called FIFA Online 2 and it’s about SOCCER! I really enjoy watching soccer and other things related to soccer like playing a GAME about it!! Anywho, I’m currently No. 1 amongst my ‘health club’ friends, remember THeM? Of course I play it the most often and so that’s probably why I’m in better ‘form’ than the others. Actually that brings to mind the word ‘condition.’ This is an interesting word with many different meanings but I’d like to touch on the meaning of the word in THiS context. Here in Korea they use the word ‘condition’ in all its Kongrish glory as meaning related to your current ‘mood’ or ‘feeling.’ Now bringing this meaning ‘stateside,’ I don’t think people stateside talk about their ‘condition’ in this respect. We would say “I feel like $#%!” and etc~

I had dinner with Sean, yeah just us two. Oh so Tiger got into an accident (read: fight) and is now staying in a hospital. I’d like to talk more about what I think about health insurance and hospitals in Korea but oh that’s another post..I went to visit Tiger YESTERDAY and then the oh-so-much-alcohol-why-do-i-d-o-this-every-time-event happened.

Tiger’s home is in Seoul and so he went back there. I took the ol’ (actually it’s fairly recently built) subway ‘up’ to Seoul (even though technically it’s down but when referring to going to Seoul, it’s ALWAYS going ‘up’ somewheres…I think maybe this dates to basically going to Seoul would bring you ‘up’ in social status??). His hospital was really close to the subway stop (well not really close, but I’ve been getting to walking around so much, it would’ve been a little silly to drive the same distance, oh wait…) Anyways long story short, Tiger said other friends were coming to visit him including GIRLS(!) and that one of them was an ‘internet shopping mall model.’ I only paid attention to ‘shopping’ ‘model’ and thoughts came up to my head but I digress…My original plan was to visit some relatives who I hadn’t seen in a while but…that didn’t happen. I waited for said ‘model’ friend and she was indeed kinda cute/pretty. [yeah she’s not quite and not quite pretty, maybe a little bit of both…] The reason I am ‘resting’ today is because I ended up drinking with several of Tiger’s friends, (turns out they’re his HS classmates and one middle schooler). I drank too much….ughh

Back to dinner with Sean, what we ate is inconsequential but WHERE now that’s the key. We ate at the “Back Door of Gangwon University.” It was cheap and good and so it fit the bill. After dinner I proceeded to flex my Fifa skills and kick Sean’s ass (online) hehe.

Anyways that’s all I did and now I’m watching episodes of The Big Bang Theory and possibly even Arrested Development!

As per my last post I am/was in a ‘slump’ a funk of sorts. Everyday was becoming boring, routine, and almost unbearable even. I didn’t want to bore you (kind) readers with the details of my life because “the details of my life are inconsequential” (guess where that quote is from and you win a prize!) Anywho, I’m on the upswing again, that’s life right? Ups and downs a rollercoaster of emotions if you will..

Today I’d like to talk about friends and the companionship that accompanies said friendship. I may have touched on this topic briefly in a previous post so forgive me in advance. I am alone in Korea, well more like ‘on my own’ but more or less the same meaning. It’s not easy being ‘on your own’ especially in a ‘foreign’ country, even if it is my ethnic motherland. I feel homesick at times, mostly missing the things I took for granted while living at home – homemade food, laundry, clean home (thanks to my lovely Grandma), and of course my friends (yall know who you are 😉 ) I came to Korea for personal reasons and so now there’s no looking back. They say variety is the spice of life but what then is monotony? In my humble opinion, I would say monotony is Hell. Now I’m no means the ‘adventurous’ type but I guess coming to Korea is in itself a little ‘adventure’ 😛

I have a knack for making friends, this dates back to my days at UT while living in the dorms. However, maybe it is due to me making friends so quickly that they ‘go’ just as quickly. I find it difficult to make lasting friendships but I want/need more than just ‘acquaintances’ around me. Therein lies my problem/solution(?) I can sort of ‘weed out’ my acquaintances and the ones remaining basically remain my friends! And of course it is a natural progression that even though we are ‘acquainted’ this can upgrade to friend status. I’m going to leave it at that or I’ll just keep rambling..

The beginning of this semester I had to start anew. I decided I had enough of my previous town and so I wanted to go ‘someplace’ bigger, well I certainly got what I wanted. I am currently in the capital of my province and so it’s a lot more ‘developed’ than said boonies I was in last year. (To be honest though, human greed has no bounds because now I want even more!) Anyways I would like to touch on my friends that I met at the ‘health club’ (aka fitness center/gym). These are real good guys (although one of them KH2 is way too much to handle sometimes, we are of opposite ilk I suppose). I also met a new friend recently (the current roommate of KH2). The moment I saw him the name ‘Sean’ came to mind and so I called him that. (I also had trouble remembering his name but his initials are SC, hmm…sounds so FAMILIAR hmm) Sean liked the name so much he took it for his own. As a result I unknowingly ‘named’ someone and it made me happy! After that I also named KH1 and KH2, Tiger and Jaguar respectively. KH1 is aiming to become a personal trainer and so he wanted a ‘cool’ and unique sounding name that would portray his image. He’s a big guy and reminds me of Wolverine from the X Men so I wanted to suggest Harry but he turned that down…then I thought, hey our Chinese zodiac is the ‘Tiger’ so why not try it? He was immediately impressed and proceeded to give me a ‘tiger hug’ so tight I heard some joints pop (I think they were mine…) As for Jaguar…well he picked that one himself, I kinda wanted to suggest Jackal (because he sort of resembles some sort of wolf creature but…) I guess Jaguar fits because it’s sort of ‘dark and majestic’ kinda how he wants to appear/be. He’s also a rich kid and so maybe one day he will own his namesake in the form of automobile transportation heh heh.

Back to the present, I really like Sean. I think he’s a humble kid and maybe it’s because of my ‘older brother’ nature (and him being younger than me) I like him around me, almost reminds me of my brother back home…I also met Sean at the gym because Jaguar sort of coerced/forced(?) him to come (yeah Jaguar definitely fits that dude well..he’s definitely…I won’t go there in my blog because I try to keep my posts rated G).

It’s Tuesday here deep in the heart of monsoon season and I was feeling shitty (I wonder if that’s rated G, ah whatever~). Work ain’t bad, all I do is show movies until vacation so I’m not ‘teaching’ anything but I’m just so bored and tired. (Sitting/standing around all day can be surprisingly tiring, or maybe I’m just outta shape 😦 ) I took a walk to the nearby National University (because food’s cheap around there and I felt like eating with friends and not..alone) I originally just planned on meeting up with Tiger but Jaguar has a car (not a Jaguar mind you but a Hyundai) and he knew a ‘really good noodle place!’ so we decided to go there, the 4 of us. I thought eating ‘really good noodles’ would cheer me up (cuz I LOVE noodles) but nah I was still in the dumps. To make things worse Jaguar kept making small talk with me and when I’m in the dumps I don’t like to be bothered (it’s a bad habit of mine I know..working on changing it). Anyways after dinner Jaguar went to do his ‘jaguar thing’ aka meeting girls and so the three of us went to eat some ice cream.

We went to Baskin-Robbins because that’s where cool kids go to eat ice cream here in Korea (no Braums here unfortunately, hmm maybe I should START one hahaha~) Tiger knew something was up with me (I tend to show my mood pretty easily, it’s written all over my face apparently) and so he offered to treat ice cream. I just agreed half-heartedly but my inner fatty (or is it outer?) was jumping for joy inside. I chose my ‘favorite’ ice cream called ‘Shooting Star’ (it’s a combination of vanilla ice cream with blue ice cream, cherry filling and POP ROCKS!) I like the Pop rocks, heck I would just eat those if I could but being embedded in an ice cream ain’t too bad either (hmm another thing I could try out in the states if/when I go back) Anyways eating ice cream was a great way to break the ice between the three of us. I’m close to Tiger but Sean’s a relative newcomer but he’s chill so we get all get along~(Jaguar is NOT chill though, I’ll say that straight up..) After eating ice cream and talking it was really therapeutic for me and I learned some more things.

I need to start reading books again, real books and not comic books…

Positive thinking is the way to go and

I need to stop bashing myself so much! I’m a mellow yellow dude and I don’t give a fock about anything.

This is a double-edged sword because sometimes just not giving a fock makes me not want to do..a fock (anything) Hence, I’m a perpetual hamster in a wheel, except this wheel is a wheel of despair. Circling and circling into the abyss…I know it won’t happen overnight but with the help of these friends I hope to overcome and conquer…myself. I’m going to start reading again, positive thinking needs a foundation I’m sure and both my friends have read quite a few books on the topic apparently. I’m gonna roll with it because I’m down with it and I also get jiggy wit it (wait that last one…oh nevermind)

Korea is a cool place, I’ve met some cool people and well, I’m not going to give up. “Can’t stop won’t stop don’t stop” I think those are the lyrics to a K pop song but I can’t remember exactly because they all sort of blend together.

Can’t wait till vacation, I’m going to spend it catching up with various peoples around Korea. I’ll be sure to update yall accordingly~

“I love sweat”
No I’m not being serious but this is a serious marketing slogan of a certain product here in Korea. I never knew about this product before coming here and because of the name (and marketing slogan) I avoided it somewhat. However! This stuff is pretty good, it’s called Pocari Sweat and it looks like this

I love sweat

Those clever (insidious?) guys over in Japan came up with this sweaty concoction. It’s basically the equivalent of Gatorade except it looks like sweat. That being said, the taste is…interesting. It kind of tastes like sweat! Hahaha~Nevertheless I sometimes pick some of this stuff up after working out because what better way to replace my hard earned sweat…with some Pocari Sweat!! Jokes aside, I like(?) this drink because it tastes less sweet than other ‘sports drinks’ That and because I’m tired of drinking the one flavor of Gatorade/Powerade that they have here…(Seriously, only Lemon-Lime Gatorade and Mountain Blast Powerade!? WTF)

Now why am I touching on this ‘sweaty’ topic? Because it’s damn HOT and I could sure use some right now! hahaha

I’m going to go drink some as soon as I get home…like a drug addict craving his fix, I need my Pocari Sweat!!!

*More random nonsense* (some of these are from more songs I like)
– Time is a healer, FreeTempo, Daishi Dance
– Love Shines Through, Break my Fall, Love comes Again
– Learn from your mistakes.
– What goes around comes around (take THAT LeBron James!)
– The mind is a powerful thing to waste. (Mind over matter)
– It’s all in your head (or MY head)
– Suburban Train

And in closing here are some celebratory pics of the new 2011 NBA Champions my hometown Dallas Mavericks!!!

I get jealous over some things…I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help it. This leads to me not liking myself and a vicious cycle ensues. I’ve had self-esteem, confidence, what-have-you problems for a long time. Some of these may stem from my upbringing (which I won’t go into detail here) but mostly it’s probably due to my personality.

I tend to make friends relatively quickly here, this is a trait I picked up at my time at UT. Living in the dorms, with a random roommate, forced me to improvise and make friends with other ‘cooler’ people to hang out with. (besides the roomie) The problem with making friends quickly in Korea is multi-faceted. First, ‘quick friends’ are a ‘quick fix’ and don’t last. I made friends in my old town last year to ‘get me by’ but now that I’ve moved I hardly keep in touch with but one or two. Granted, if I were to visit my old town (which I did this year) they would still be my ‘friends’ but it’s more in line with being ‘acquaintances.’ Now who the eff cares right? People come and go, as do ‘friends’ but I am so damn LONELY here, it’s insane…I wish I had just ONE real good friend who I could talk to or hang with anytime I wanted. I’ve found a ‘friend’ but he’;s a most bad one…his name is cigarette. I won’t continue to personify cigarettes here but it’s true that cigarettes have become my ‘best worst friend.’ I smoke to pass the time and I will admit that I’m addicted. Waiting for the bus or just walking outside, I am constantly smoking…I keep telling myself that I’ll quit once I get a girlfriend but that hasn’t happened yet so yeah…heh

I miss all the things I took for granted back in Texas. Good homecooking, a clean room, freshly done laundry, et al. I guess it’s all a part of growing up. I do have something over the homeboys here in Korea. About 95% of them live with their parents (I just made that number up, but it’s a damn high percentage) until they get…married (Yikes!) I ‘left home’ at age 23 and I don’t think I will ever go back. Of course, I don’t really have a ‘home’ to return to either..heh

I guess I should focus on the important things which is…to make MONEY. That’s my number one priority because as my good friend Ed said, “if you don’t know what you wanna do in life, make money” Also ‘save some money. it’ll do ya good’ (a Trigger quote)

I still don’t have a ‘dream’ I’m jsut living life man, searching and striving for…anything.

I don’t need a girlfriend….but I secretly hope for one. Heck female friends would be nice too but it’s hard to ‘make connections’ because I guess I’m technically a ‘working professional.’ Unfortunately for me my school doesn’t have any women I would like to ‘get to know better.’

I like listening to electronic music, specifically trance. Nothing hardcore, something with a good ambient feel to it. I prefer songs with no lyrics too but if they have lyrics they better not mess with the beat!! I would like to visit Europe one day and party in their dance clubs because they play the kind of music I like…hopefully someday, one day…

Marriage? I have an ‘age range’ I’d like to get married but yeah, it’s probably not gonna happen.

So I only slept 2 hours(or less) last night and so I’m a bit woozy in the head…Hungover plus being exhausted is definitely a BAD way to start the day haha.

Fortunately for me there are many ways to ‘get over’ a hangover. First and foremost is drinking plenty of fluids but apparently Koreans have taken it a step further with ‘hangover drinks.’ Fortunately I didn’t need to use one of these on this particular occasion heh heh.

Memorial Day weekend is coming up in Korea and I lucked out in that my last two classes were CANCELLED (yay!). *on a side note: the Dallas Mavericks are all square in the NBA finals (yay again.)

Now I’ve got Korean blood in my veins and so I would like to take a moment to remember the Korean War. (one..and..two..and done 😉

I don’t have anything in particular planned this weekend but I’m sure alcohol will be involved. Because everyone knows that to celebrate ‘our’ great veterans we need to drink moderately (ha!)

It’s funny how the human body can adapt to almost any situation…In my case, working on 2 hours of sleep. While it was damn awful getting up this morning, by the time I had some lunch my day has cleared up for the better!

It’s getting hot these days again. The circle of life continues…like perpetual motion.

More nonsense as follows:

Hindsight is 20-20.
Alcohol in moderation is GOOD!
Being single is…
My haircut is a bit too short.
I’m handsome.
I tend to underestimate myself to stay humble but actually I do it far too often.
Thinking outside the box…
Learn from your mistakes
Rhythm is a dancer
ATB is probably my newest favorite old DJ
I like to chill…a bit too much. Gonna have to work on that one *wink 😉
Two negatives make a positive and vice versa!?
You’re not alone (as in aliens are REAL haha just kidding…or am I?)_

Most of the time I don’t care for rainy days, that is to say that I don’t like them one bit. However, today I’m feeling a bit sentimental if you will and it’s not a bad feeling at all. It’s the kind of rain that could be described as a drizzle or even something more insignificant. This rain will probably last all day long and while it certainly puts a damper on my mood, I guess I appreciate the cool temperature that will surely come ‘after the rain.’ (ameagari)

Anyways, rain is a necessary part of nature. (although it can be quite messy, and I don’t like messes heh heh)

I’ll end with some random gibberish that may make sense, if you are as ‘enlightened’ as I am. (or even if you’re not and you don’t get what I’m saying it’s quite alright)

Time heals…
It’s all in your head (Mind over matter)
Music is wonderful (although I prefer some ‘weird’ stuff)
Mainstream is downstream…
Girls are complex (and confusing as $#@!)
Life…is living
Coffee really works (or maybe it’s just in my head)

The one thing I regret…
Don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Forgive but don’t forget.
Two birds with one stone (this is freaking global!)

With age comes wisdom…sometimes 🙂
Stress is the biggest piece of locomotion EVER
Come what may…
the Future is not predetermined.